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Question Formation in Québec* Martin Elsig and Shana Poplack 1

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Question Formation in Québec* Martin Elsig and Shana Poplack 1 Transplanted dialects and language change: question formation in Québec* Martin Elsig and Shana Poplack 1 Introduction Variability in question formation is a well-documented feature of French syntax. In yes/no questions, five distinct variant forms have been competing for centuries: inversion of (clitic) subject and verb (INV), as in (1), complex inversion (C-INV) (2), rising intonation (INT) (3), phrase-initial interroga- tive particle est-ce-que (ECQ) (4), and its post-verbal counterpart tu (TU) (5). (1) As-tu (INV) déjà parlé avec un vrai Français de France là? (XX.105.2768)1 ‘Have you ever spoken to a real Frenchman from France?’ (2) Et le roi est-il (C-INV) icitte? (XIX.036.3932) ‘And the king, is he here?’ (3) Ah, toi tu restes pas (INT) avec tes parents? (XX.112.1819) ‘Oh, you don’t live with your parents?’ (4) Mes bombes est-ce que (ECQ) je les largue ici? (XX.078.1502) ‘My bombs, do I throw them here?’ (5) Tu vas-tu (TU) être plus marié oubedonc moins marié? (XX.079.1471) ‘Are you gonna be more married or less married?’ Empirical studies of European varieties report that the variability illus- trated in (1-5) has resolved itself in favor of INT (3), with ECQ persisting as a minor contender. INV, once the quintessential interrogative marker, is now * The research reported here is part of a larger project entitled Confronting pre- scription and praxis in the evolution of grammar. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Sonderforschungsbereich Mehrsprachigkeit to Elsig, and that of the SSHRC and the Killam Foundation to Poplack. Poplack holds the Canada Research Chair in Linguistics. 1Codes refer to corpus (XIX =Récits du français québécois d’autrefois [Poplack & St-Amand 2002]; XX =Corpus du français parlé à Ottawa-Hull [Poplack, 1989]; XVII =Corpus of 17th-century popular French plays), speaker and line number. Ex- amples are reproduced verbatim from audio recordings or plays. U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics, Volume 12.2, 2006 2 MARTIN ELSIG & SHANA POPLACK restricted to literary use. The spread of TU is said to have been blocked by stigma (Behnstedt 1973:32, Foulet 1921:271-272), while C-INV has disap- peared altogether. In Québec French, on the other hand, not only are the “ex- tinct” variants thriving, but as we shall see, they each fulfill a well-defined function. As a result, the Canadian system of question formation appears structurally more complex than that of its source, the opposite of what is expected of transplanted dialects (e.g. Britain 2004). In this paper, we investigate the continuing evolution of question forma- tion by tracing the variable expression of yes/no questions before and after the French settlement of Québec during the 17th century. 2 Data and Method The corpora on which our analyses are based, displayed in Table 1, are par- ticularly well-suited to this endeavor. Century Source Time span 20 Corpus du français parlé à Ottawa-Hull (spkrs b. 1898-1965) Poplack (1989) 19 Récits du français québécois d'autrefois (spkrs b. 1846-1895) Poplack & St-Amand (2002) 17 17th-century popular French plays (1629-1663) 16-20 Répertoire historique des grammaires du français (1530-1998) Poplack, Jarmasz, Dion & Rosen (ms) Table 1: Data sources Two represent vernaculars spoken in Québec in the 19th and 20th centuries. A corpus of 17th-century popular plays and a compilation of normative gram- mars dating from 1530 to the present are complementary diachronic sources representing a benchmark before the language was transplanted. We make use of the prescriptive tradition to date the variant forms, assess their institu- tional acceptance, and most important, ascertain the factors conditioning their selection (Rosen 2002, Poplack, Jarmasz, Dion, & Rosen (ms); Poplack & Dion 2004; Poplack, Dion, Jarmasz & Leblanc 2002). Real-time analysis spanning several centuries will help pinpoint the locus and time of change, if any. TRANSPLANTED DIALECTS AND LANGUAGE CHANGE 3 3 Variable Context From each of the usage corpora we extracted every non-rhetorical question requiring a yes/no answer, noting the variant selected for each, excluding all others (e.g. wh-questions, as in (6), fixed expressions (7), non-sentential questions (8), imperatives (9), rhetorical questions (10), echo questions (11), and interrogative tags (12)). (6) Il dit « Pourquoi tu as pas tué l’ours blanc? » (XIX.036.2670) ‘He says « Why didn’t you kill the white bear? »’ (7) Hey, ça fait longtemps, tu sais? (XX.096.79) ‘Hey, it’s been a long time, you know?’ (8) Les pattes rondes ça? (XIX.043.2452) ‘The round paws, there?’ (9) Allons aux moutons? (XIX.054.1893) ‘Shall we get to the point?’ (10) Tu as peut-être déjà vu ça ces chartières là ou entendu parler… ? (XIX.18.820) ‘You may have already seen those window bars, or heard of them… ?’ (11) “Ah moi j'aime pas ça”. “Tu aimes pas ça? (XX.103.398) ‘ “Ah, I don’t like that”. “You don’t like that?”’ (12) Ils grasseyent eux-autres à Montréal, hein? (XX.089.1725) ‘They have a guttural R in Montreal, eh?’ Table 2 compares variant distribution in contemporary Québec and European French. Quebec French European French T his Fox Pohl Terry Ashby Söll Coveney study 1982 1965 1970 1977 1982 2002 % % % % % % % Intonation 35 36 86 86 80 91 79 -tu 33 34 0 - - - - Inversion 26 29 0 11 9 1 - Est-ce que 6 1 14 3 11 8 21 Complex-inv. - - - - - - - Total 776 871 816 3016 130 452 180 Table 2: Distribution of variants in Québec French and European French 4 MARTIN ELSIG & SHANA POPLACK INT is basically the only viable variant in Europe; in Canada, there are three. Why should speakers select one rather than another? Most scholars who have addressed this issue believe the variants differ pragmatically, conveying nuances like emphasis, doubt, astonishment, weak curiosity, etc. (e.g. Behnstedt 1973, Coveney 2002, Pohl 1965). We are less sanguine about our ability to identify such readings in discourse, let alone correlate them with specific variants. Instead, we examine the role of linguistic factors (e.g. subject type, and frequency, form, semantics, syllable length and lexical identity of the verb, as well as polarity). Most of these, along with speech style, have been invoked for centuries as explanatory of variant choice (e.g. Ashby 1977, Behnstedt 1973, Coveney 2002, Dewaele 1999, Pohl 1965, Söll 1982, Terry 1970). We analyze their combined effect using Goldvarb 2001 (Rand & Sankoff 1990), which enables us to contextualize the role of the variants within the system, with a view to elucidating its evolution over time. 4 Results Turning first to contemporary Canadian French, a first important finding (Fig. 1) is that negative polarity is overwhelmingly expressed by INT, as in (3). Ensuing analyses thus deal only with affirmative questions. Figure 1: Distribution of variants according to polarity TRANSPLANTED DIALECTS AND LANGUAGE CHANGE 5 Table 3 displays four independent variable rule analyses of the other factors selected as significant to variant choice. Variant Inversion -tu Est-ce que Intonation Total N 205 247 50 186 Corrected mean: .30 .36 .07 .27 Subject type 2nd person 100% .36 .37 [ ] Others 0% .70 .69 [ ] Verb form Synthetic .47 [ ] [ ] [ ] Periphrastic .64 [ ] [ ] [ ] Verb semantics "Cognitive" .77 .43 - [ ] Others .36 .54 100% [ ] Verb syllables Polysyllabic .64 .33 .63 [ ] Monosyllabic .45 .57 .45 [ ] Verb frequency Frequent (21+) [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Mid (6-20) [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Rare (1-5) [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Style Careful .44 .46 .65 .52 Casual .61 .58 .24 .45 Table 3: Variable rule analyses of factors selected as significant to vari- ant choice: 20th century (affirmative tokens only; brackets indicate non- significant factors) The table shows that the major task of INV is to form direct questions, as in (13), while questions involving other subjects tend to be formed with the interrogative particle TU, as in (14). (13) Bien j’ai dit, es-tu (INV) fou toi? (XX.112.1980) ‘So I said: “Are you nuts?”’ (14) Bien j’avais-tu (TU) de l’air niaiseuse? (XX.117.2122) ‘Well, did I look silly?’ 6 MARTIN ELSIG & SHANA POPLACK Other contexts favoring INV, albeit to a lesser degree, include verbs of cognition, as in (15), and polysyllabic verbs (16). Here INV is complemen- tary to TU, which in turn behaves like a default variant. We also note that verb frequency, claimed by many (e.g. Ashby 1977, Behnstedt 1973, Dewaele 1999, Pohl 1965) to explain why INV persists at all, has no effect. (Nor does lexical identity, though not shown here). We conclude that INV remains productive in contemporary Canadian question formation. (15) Maintenant, comprenez-vous (INV) que pour le minéral je peux le localiser maintenant? (XX.082.2979) ‘Now, do you understand that for the mineral, I can locate it now?’ (16) Mangeriez-vous (INV) votre père? (XIX.004.1654) ‘Would you eat your father?’ The variants also have strong stylistic connotations, and these too are the opposite of those reported for Europe: In Canada, the rare ECQ (17), and to a lesser extent, INT (18), denote formality, while the other variants are rele- gated to casual speech (19-20). (17) Excusez, est-ce que (ECQ) je peux le regarder? (XX.091.270) ‘Excuse me, may I see it?’ (18) Vous êtes correcte comme ça ? (INT) (XX.119.2053) ‘Is everything all right this way?’ (19) Penses-tu (INV) que j’étais faite comme un boeuf? (XX.009.1478) ‘Do you think I was built like an ox?’ (20) Ouais, ça a-tu (TU) du sacre bon sens ? (XX.84.1867) ‘Yeah, does that make any goddamn sense?’ We may summarize the main functions of the interrogative markers in 20th century Québec French as follows: a) negative polarity questions are expressed with INT, b) INV is specialized for direct questions, c) ECQ is a hyperstyle marker, and d) TU assumes most of the remaining (non- specialized) work of question formation.
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